Days When She's A Whisper
by Dazzling
Summary: I used to talk to you... like you were still around." Ficlet.


  
**author:** dazzling  
**email:** glitter_and_glam@hotmail.com  
**disclaimer:** show belongs to jj, title and snippets to bon jovi's "misery town" and w.h auden's "funeral blues", anything else you recognize won't be mine either  
**summary:** "i used to talk to you... like you were still around."  
_post-'the two', 'succession'-inspired fic, s/v shippy-angst, vaughn past-tense second person pov_

**the days when she's a whisper**

They used to have to constantly tell you she was gone.  
  
For to you, she was there more than ever.  
  
You used to talk to her, when there was no one around. No one but her. Small things, like what to order from the Chinese take-away menu that night or if your belt went with your shoes or the effects of cartoons on a grieving man's mind.   
  
It never mattered to you whether she replied or not. You often thought it was better that she didn't, for the illusion of her standing next to you, whispering in your ear, was more than you could sometimes bear.  
  
Sometimes you'd replay conversations from days of your past together. You'd hear her tell you she loved you, feel your heart flutter like it inevitably did whenever she spoke. Her voice was what kept you hoping. Her voice was the remnant of her that broke you the most.  
  
You'd play hockey and hit the puck to her, still feeling a jolt of surprise when it rebounded off the lonely boards and sailed back out onto the ice. You'd sit on the couch watching _Friends_, turning sideways every so often to see if she was laughing. She never was. You'd give anything to see her laugh again. The sun was useless when she laughed. The sparkles in her eyes, though you saw them so rarely, could have put it out of business.  
  
They used to tell you she was gone.  
  
As the months wore on, your conversations got more intense. You went from discussing breakfast cereals to breaking down in her (imaginary) arms at nighttime, letting the wind embrace you while you pretended it was her. That was when she started answering. That was when you'd crossed the line. That was when you needed her more than ever. That was when it hit you that she had been your everything, and the tiny fragments of her that you had left to cling to would never be good enough.  
  
There were days when she was a whisper in the breeze, nights when she was a screaming in your mind. Sometimes she'd disappear for a while, and your world would stop, only beginning to spin again when her murmur returned. But she was always there, your immortal, a presence that wouldn't leave you not matter what.  
  
You knew that she could never leave you, not so suddenly, not like that.  
  
They used to tell you she was gone.  
  
That used to be the counselor's favourite line to use at your twice-weekly sessions. The counselor wasn't your idea, of course. They had told you that you hadn't "accepted" death. You used to talk to her in the counseling sessions, too. You were sure that they all thought you were crazy. You weren't sure that that wasn't the truth.   
  
The truth was that you never accepted her death. You didn't understand how someone so full of life could fall and leave you so far behind. She wasn't dead to you. She was still falling. And so were you. Falling and saying hello to the ground, only to be pulled back up by her whispered words of comfort. She always pulled you back up.   
  
They used to tell you she was gone.  
  
You were so in love with her that it nearly killed you. Looking back, you almost wish it had. Then you wouldn't be here and she wouldn't be there and you'd be together. She'd be with you, instead of just a voice in your head. Whenever you thought like that, you'd hear her more often. Reassuring, calming, soft and gentle. That's when you'd realize, every time, that you were still in love with her, and it was still killing you.  
  
But it didn't matter. You'd die a thousand times over if it meant you could still talk to her.  
  
You remember the last thing you talked about. The weather and the rain. The storms outside your window. The lightening in your heart. You wandered outside and let the drops beat down on your shoulders and soak through your clothes, knowing how much she loved the downpour. You collapsed into bed that night happier than you had been in a long time. And then you woke up the next morning, and the sun had come back out, and all the clocks had stopped, and she wasn't there anymore.  
  
At that moment, you wanted to put out the stars, pack up the moon, dismantle the sun. Pull them down from their perpetual state of being, to prove to yourself that even the most eternal things in this world could fade away. Rid the world of the elements that had denied her to you.  
  
They used to tell you she was gone.  
  
You hated yourself the day you finally made yourself believe it. There was drinking and tears and shattering glass and breaking hearts. The bastard sun had come out to play again. You hated yourself, a deep burning fire of guilt and regret and grief and the horrible thought that one day your memories would disappear just as suddenly as she had. You hated yourself. And as the sun went down on another night without her, you wondered if somewhere, somehow, she hated you for it too.

**fin**

(written listening to "with or without you", "my immortal" and "last kiss", which may explain why it got a bit more depressing than i wanted it to)  
  
please review! 


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